Another One

Mac DeMarco is an unusually sensitive songwriter, capable of ferreting out what someone else might be feeling even as he’s absorbed in his own perspective. His new mini-LP, which features some of his prettiest material to date, is like a novella, or a made-for-TV movie—something to chew on while we wait for the next major project.

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To get to Rockaway Beach you take the A train toward Far Rockaway, waiting as it winds through Brooklyn, past clumps of trees dotting picturesque residential neighborhoods, over narrow bridges surrounded by the sea, through an imaginary portal away from the hustle and bustle of New York City to a more serene existence. That's where Mac DeMarco lives on the water, when he's not busy gallivanting in the Brooklyn scene or touring across the world. At the end of his new mini-LP, Another One, he tells us his address, and invites us to come over for a cup of coffee, so that in the process of taking that long train ride, toward boardwalks dusted with white sand and the ocean stretched for miles and miles, we might come closer to understanding his slacker-poet point of view.

At first sight, DeMarco seems impossibly "chill," that meditative state achieved by studying Buddhism or popping a few Oxys, only it’s more complicated than that. He connects not simply because he's "chill," but because his relaxed self seems borne of extreme self-confidence. His music isn't for situations that are laidback in and of themselves. They're for the unguarded moments you might share with another person where the both of you are comfortable without reservation. Music made for the end of a rooftop barbecue, when the sun dips, the beer is nearly gone, and everyone who doesn't want to be there has already gone. Here, you can be honest, goofy, even silent; all of it is accepted without a dissenting word. This type of sincerity without precocity is rare in art, and the contrast between the content of DeMarco's music and the content of his character only highlights his singularity as someone whose contradictions build toward a vibrant self, rather than collapsing in disarray.

Which means: If you like DeMarco, you'll like Another One. It's like a novella, or a made-for-TV movie—something to chew on while we wait for the next major project. It riffs on his established formula: the same rinky-dink guitar tone, funky basslines, air-tight percussion announcing a band with enough experience to avoid fucking up the vibe. There are four slow songs and three songs that are a little less slow but still plenty relaxed, all of them filled with little details to catch your ear. The solo in "The Way You Love Her" was written with Robbie Robertson's strictured tone in mind, even as it ends up a few steps closer to the nu-reggae swing of Magic!'s "Rude". Few will sound as comely or as inviting as DeMarco does on "No Other Heart" when he sings, "Come on and give this lover boy a try/ I'll put the sparkle right back in your eyes/ What could you lose?"

The twinkling chord progression on "Without Me"—amongst his prettiest songs ever recorded—is buttressed by a cloud of washed out synthesizers, creating a lovesick feeling as he sings about accepting that a woman is better without him. "Just to Put Me Down" has a future as an extended set closer, with the refrain of the song title warping ever so slowly as he sings it over and over again, his guitar bursting into peals of expression. The wink of the album's title turns introspective on the title track, with a deeply languid DeMarco ruminating about the uncertainty of his relationship while wondering if "another one" is knocking at the door of his beloved.

DeMarco is an unusually sensitive songwriter, capable of ferreting out what someone else might be feeling even as he’s absorbed in his own perspective. He’s what sex columnist Dan Savage refers to as "GGG": good, giving, and game. When I saw him at this year's Primavera Sound Festival, his band dropped in a few minutes of Coldplay's "Yellow"—the joke, of course, being that "Yellow" is fairly close to a song that DeMarco would've written. Chris Martin says the stars shine for his lover; DeMarco says they call for him, only he'd rather stay with his woman. I know I'm special, he sings, but I want you to be a part of it, too. And so he continues to write another one and another one until we're convinced.